Venue Type & Location
Performance Spaces
Overview
Located on the W side of the Temple Liberty on a prestigious site near the River Thames, the entrance to Middle Temple was and remains on the S side of Fleet Street.
Part of the medieval Temple land formed a monastery and part remained unconsecrated. The monastic buildings of the Knights Templar lay around the present Church Court (now called Cloisters), with the refectory on the site of the present Inner Temple Hall. Another hall lay on or somewhat to the E of Middle Temple Lane and housed the lay brethren and other laymen.
Middle Temple hall was built on the S side of Fountain Court in what was considered the middle of the Temple area. The Elizabethan red brick hall retains much of its original character despite bombing raids and renovations to its exterior over the centuries.
Performance History
Early 17th c. accounts record several performances by royal troupes at the Middle Temple and a diary entry in 1601/2 indicates that Twelfth Night was performed, probably by the Chamberlain's Men in the hall.
Current Status
History of the Venue
12th c. Knights Templar occupied the site.
1185 Temple Church dedicated.
1312 Order of the Knights Templar suppressed.
1324 Property acquired by the Order of St John.
by 1346 Some buildings leased to law students who had the use of the Temple church as their chapel.
1540 Temple buildings possessed by the Crown at the Dissolution.
1562--73 Hall built.
1667 Belfry and clock added to the hall.
1683--4 Main entrance gateway designed by Roger North built leading from Fleet Street. Christopher Wren designed the Cloisters.
late 17th--early 18th c. Chambers built around new courtyards.
1732 New cupola added to the roof of the hall.
1745 Embattled brick parapet added to the N side of the hall. Original lantern of the hall removed and a new cupola added.
1757--8 S wall and W end repaired with Portland stone as well as brick. Buttresses added to the W exterior.
1824--5 Two rooms, the Library and Parliament Chamber (today the Parliament Chamber and Queen's Room respectively) built on the S side of the hall.
1826 Neo-Gothic cupola replaced the decayed 18th c. addition to the roof of the hall. Tiling of the roof removed and replaced with Welsh rag slate.
1830 Central fireplace removed from the hall.
1831 Porch tower restored.
1940 Elm Court chambers hit during a bombing raid; the explosion threw masonry across Middle Temple Lane and through the E gable end of hall. E end severely damaged and screen reduced to rubble but the hammerbeam roof remained intact.
1949 Restoration work completed on the hall, porch tower and E forebuilding by Sir Edward Maufe.
1956--8 Neo-Georgian library designed by Maufe replaced some 17th c. chambers.
Record Source
REED Inns of Court 1.189, 204, 234, 346--7, 354; 2.685
Patrons who owned this venue
[No data found.]
Bibliographic Sources
- Bradley, Simon, and Nikolaus Pevsner. London I: The City of London. London: Penguin Books, 1997
- Burkhart, Robert E. ‘The Playing Space in the Halls of the Inns of Court.'. South Atlantic Review 56.4 (1991): 1--5.
- Burkhart, Robert E. 'The Surviving Shakespearean Playhouses: The Halls of the Inns of Court and the Excavation of the Rose.'. Theatre History Studies 12 (1992): 173--96.
- Burkhart, Robert E. 'The Dimensions of Middle Temple Hall.'. Shakespeare Quarterly 37 (1986): 370--1.
- Dean, Joseph. Middle Temple Hall: Four Centuries of History. London: The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, 1970
- Girouard, Mark. 'The halls of the Elizabethan and early Stuart Inns of Court'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2011 The Intellectual and Cultural World of the Early Modern Inns of Court 138--53.
- Herbert, W. Antiquities of the Inns of Court and Chancery. London: npub, 1804
- Ireland, Samuel. Picturesque Views, with an Historical Account of the Inns of Court, in London and Westminster. London: R. Faulder and J. Egerton, 1800
- Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England. An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in London. 5 vols. London: HMSO, 1924--30
- Williamson, J. Bruce. Middle Temple Hall. Notes upon its history collected from the Records of the Middle Temple Society. London: Chancery Lane P, 1928